Poetry Workshop: Blindfolded and Juggling Knives
Have you found that finding the space to forgive is harder than expressing your anger or hate? Have failed relationships, political turmoil, health and educational inequities, or environmental and social injustices dampened your creative spirit, silenced your voice, and reduced your poems to rants? Are you ready to reclaim your voice? Are you ready to learn to trust the writing process itself to keep you from drowning? This generative workshop is an opportunity for poets at all levels, especially those struggling with writer’s block, to recharge their relationships with writing and to rediscover poetry’s sharp edges and healing potential.
Frank X. Walker has published ten collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award. A lover of comics, Walker curated “We Wear the Mask: Black Superheroes through the Ages,” an exhibit of his personal collection of action figures, comics, and related memorabilia. Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets His honors include a 2004 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry, the 2008 and 2009 Denny C. Plattner Award for Outstanding Poetry in Appalachian Heritage, as well as fellowships and residences with Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Kentucky Arts Council. Walker serves as Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.